#fusion-power

#fusion-power

Inertia Enterprises burst onto the scene in February with a $450 million Series A, making it one of the best capitalized startups in the industry, aiming to bring laser-based fusion reactors to market.

Fusion power has transitioned from being a subject of skepticism to a promising technology that could provide nearly limitless energy, attracting significant investment and interest.

Fusion power seeks to use the energy released from the fusing of atoms to generate electricity. Humans have known how to fuse atoms for decades, from the hydrogen bomb to various fusion devices built in labs.

Fusion power's biggest question remains unanswered: how do you ensure the cost to start the fusion reaction isn't higher than the price at which you can sell the power? Plenty of people have ideas, but no one has cracked it yet. Commonwealth Fusion Systems, for example, is confident enough that it's building a massive reactor that costs several hundred million dollars. But the device won't be turned on until next year, leaving the question unanswered for now.

The magnet is the first of 18 that, when the reactor is complete, will create a doughnut-like shape that will produce a powerful magnetic field to confine and compress superheated plasma. If all goes well, that plasma will release more energy than it takes to heat and compress it. After decades of promise and delay, fusion power appears to be just around the corner - CFS and its competitors are locked in a race to deliver the first electrons to the grid sometime in the early 2030s.

Over the last several years, fusion power has gone from the butt of jokes - always a decade away! - to an increasingly tangible and tantalizing technology that has drawn investors off the sidelines. The technology may be challenging to master and expensive to build today, but fusion promises to harness the nuclear reaction that powers the sun to generate nearly limitless energy here on Earth.